Softball team wins some, loses some

Thursday

May 10, 2007 at 12:01 AMMay 10, 2007 at 10:17 AM

The Ipswich High softball team are still in good shape, with an 8-4 record.

However, the team certainly has to watch out for rough runs like the one that started the first full week of May. The team fell in a very close 1-0 loss to Pentucket on May 7, but the next day ran into a tough North Reading team and came away with a 9-0 loss.

“It was a little bit of them and a little bit of us,” said Tigers coach Doug Woodworth, in relation to the reason the team lost by such a wide margin to the Hornets. “We committed five errors today and they capitalized. Seven runs were probably unearned."

Joshua Boyd/jboyd@cnc.com

The Ipswich High softball team are still in good shape, with an 8-4 record.

However, the team certainly has to watch out for rough runs like the one that started the first full week of May. The team fell in a very close 1-0 loss to Pentucket on May 7, but the next day ran into a tough North Reading team and came away with a 9-0 loss.

“It was a little bit of them and a little bit of us,” said Tigers coach Doug Woodworth, in relation to the reason the team lost by such a wide margin to the Hornets. “We committed five errors today and they capitalized. Seven runs were probably unearned.”

One player for North Reading hit two home runs, while Ipswich was only able to manage five hits.

“We were no threat at all, offensively,” he said. “We made too many mistakes in the field. They got the hits when they needed them. We can play badly against a good team.”

A day earlier, the team was involved in what could only be called “a good softball game” by Woodworth.

“We almost have to play perfect,” he said. “We made two mistakes and gave them a run. On one, we should’ve had a girl out on a play, but she was safe and they were able to bunt her in. We didn’t quite execute, but it wasn’t a badly-played game.”

Neither team got a ton of offense, as Ipswich was limited to three hits, and Pentucket had five runs. Kerry Desmond pitched a strong game, in Woodworth’s eyes.

Desmond was the big hitter a few days earlier on May 4, when the Tigers finished off a three-game winning streak with a 5-3 victory over Triton. Desmond went 3-for-3 at the plate in this game, with all three hits coming in the form of triples.

“That was one of the best games we played, and they’re a good team. We didn’t have any errors — we fielded the ball very well,” he said. “We had three or four good, smart plays in the field, defensively and offensively.”

The team played some small ball to accompany Desmond’s big hits, with four bunts helping the team on the offensive end. Tiffany DeFrancesco had two bunts and an RBI, while Stephanie Sutherby and Krista MacKenzie each had single bunts.

“Kerry’s leading us in hitting, while MacKenzie, Kelly Michael and Emma Docking are also hitting the ball really well,” Woodworth said.

The team tightened things up defensively to close the deal and get the win, as well.

“They had the tying runs on base in the seventh inning,” he said. “They had a runner on second and third, and we got a pop-up and a line drive and it was over. Things went our way.”

Prior to the Triton game, the team picked up big wins over Gloucester on May 3 and Georgetown on May 2.

The Gloucester game ended as a 15-6 victory for Ipswich, despite the Tigers being down 3-0 early in the game.

After getting a couple of runs in the second inning, Ipswich jumped out with seven more in the third inning and four more in the fourth inning.

“In the game before against Georgetown, we had put some runs up [12-0 final],” he said. “We got some good swings in [against Georgetown]. We had 10 or 11 hits in the third inning. It got contagious and everyone started to hit.”

DeFrancesco started the game and “did a pretty good job,” but had some location problems and was replaced by Desmond.

MacKenzie, Sutherby and Jacqui Viator each had three hits, while everyone in the starting lineup contributed at least one hit, with the Tigers totaling 19 hits.

In the 12-0 victory over Georgetown, Desmond earned a two-hitter in the pitching circle. She struck out 13 and had two hits at the plate as well. MacKenzie, DeFrancesco and Dani Robertson each had two hits.

“That got us going a little bit” on the week-long winning streak, Woodworth said. The team had previously fallen to Masconomet in a 10-inning game on April 30.

“We just lost two in a row, but we need two more wins for the state tournament,” Woodworth added. “We haven’t had a lot of practice time — we had four games last week, four games this week.”

The team went 10-10 all of last year, and Woodworth’s and the Tigers’ goal is to better that mark.